Mother’s Day - May 11, 2008

Adah Ward-Randolph, Ohio University

Today was Mother’s Day. However, it has become so capitalistic that people will kill people to get what they want on this day. My husband insisted on taking me out to dinner even though I insisted on not going. So, after having gone to church and fulfilled my spirit to stand the principalities I will undoubtedly have to fight this week, I consented and prepared to go out to dinner.

Before the month of May ends and the celebrations of old that marked May Day as International Workers' Day fade deeper into our historical memory, I wanted to share a speech I gave (as amended) to the Ithaca area for the 2007 May Day Immigrants Rights Rally. A more substantial discussion of 'neoliberal nativism' can be found in my forthcoming article in Race, Gender and Class (2008, 15:1-2).

I. “Workers of the World… UNITE!”

The news today is abuzz with Ted Kennedy's "heroic" feat of sailing his schooner in the annual weekend race event off of Nantucket Island and Martha's Vineyard called the Figawi Race Weekend. Such activity as this -- a bunch of New England yachtspersons spending the weekend in competitive racing and partying -- is of course easy fodder for class critique. But the real reason I am blogging is simply to let off some steam about the racist representations of the Figawi organization, the media's uncritical reporting on the same, and the longtime involvement of the DNC liberal elder statesman, Kennedy, in the organization.